The present invention is directed to a soft mechanical restraint system that may be easily and quickly deployed by a first person on a subject being held in a restrained position by a second person, and then attached to one or more seats, such that the subject is safely restrained for an extended period of time in relative comfort.
There are many thousands of human service and law enforcement agencies and facilities that provide care and supervision to aggressive, suicidal, and emotionally disturbed persons or otherwise dangerous persons (hereinafter commonly referred to as “EDPs”).
Another common problem faced each day by airline and other transportation personnel (e.g. train conductors, bus drivers, etc.) is dealing with intoxicated or aggressive passengers. For example, “air rage” is a serious problem that poses a great danger to airline safety. Emotionally disturbed and/or intoxicated passengers may get out of control and threaten the safety of other passengers and airline crew members as well as their own safety. Furthermore, potential hijackers and other dangerous persons may also pose a significant threat to airline safety.
During “air rage”, hijack attempts, or other vehicle-related incidents, the dangerous and/or aggressive passengers may need to be restrained by untrained individuals such as other passengers and crew members, and then held down for extended periods of time. In one recent incident, an aggressive airline passenger restrained by fellow passengers died due to positional asphyxiation from an improperly applied hold. While this is less of an issue in a hijack situation, such incidents point to the fact that restraint of dangerous persons on an airplane or other public vehicle (such as a train or a bus) poses a danger not only to other passengers and vehicle personnel, but also to the restrained individuals themselves.
In addition, staff and officers working in human service and law enforcement agencies and facilities that provide care and supervision to aggressive, suicidal, and emotionally disturbed persons, regularly come into physical contact with the EDPs through the use of physical subduing or restraint holds when the EDP becomes aggressive.
Although there are many types of well-known physical subduing holds, the safest and most advantageous physical subduing hold is a Primary Restraint Technique (PRT) described in greater detail in a commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,273,091 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SAFELY MAINTAINING A RESTRAINING HOLD ON A PERSON”. The PRT approach is particularly advantageous in confined areas such as vehicle (e.g. airplane, train, or bus) aisles.
While restraint holds, such as the PRT, are useful for relatively short periods of time, often restraint of the EDP is necessary for an extended period. This is especially true when the EDP must be restrained in a vehicle, or is otherwise being transported in a vehicle. In such cases, the EDP must be restrained using some sort of a mechanical restraint system. Typically, this involves placing wrist and ankle mechanical restraints on the EDP so that the EDP may be restrained for an extended period of time at or near the place of the restraint hold, or transported to another location while wearing the restraints. Most previously known restraint systems involve mechanical locks—for example, one popular restraint utilizes a mechanical spring-loaded lock that requires a special key to open. It takes at least 4-5 staff members to successfully apply such restraints at a speed of no lower than 2-3 minutes per restraint. During the application of these restraints, the EDP must be held down and poses a constant threat to the staff members until the restraining process is complete. Such a concerted effort is simply impossible aboard most vehicles because of the limited space available. For example, no more than two persons in addition to the EDP may operate in an airplane aisle.
Furthermore, removal of such restraints in emergency situations (i.e. in a medical or other emergency) takes a significant amount of time since a key must be located and used to open each restraint on each limb—this is especially problematic because without the key, which may not be immediately available in case of an emergency, the restraints cannot be removed at all. This is particularly dangerous when the EDP is being restrained in a vehicle because if the vehicle suffers an accident, the EDP may need to be removed from the vehicle very quickly. Moreover, even after the EDP is placed in a previously known restraint system, there is no way to place the EDP in a comfortable restrained position where the EDP will not pose a danger to themselves or to others, unless the EDP is subjected to constant supervision and observation. Finally, such complex restraint systems are expensive, heavy, and require extensive training to use properly.
Manipulation of the previously known restraints once attached is difficult as well, requiring several people to pull webbing through complex system of buckles and connectors to connect cuff restraints to one another. And often, once an EDP is moved to a stationary restraint area, such as a seat, the restraints used during EDP transport must be removed and replaced with stationary restraints.
Some of the above problems and challenges are advantageously solved by a novel circular cuff module that may be applied to each of an EDP's limbs quickly (and removed therefrom) by staff members without use of complex locking mechanisms that is disclosed in the commonly assigned co-pending U.S. patent application entitled “Soft Circular Restraint Apparatus and Method” incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Several advantageous approaches to interconnecting the novel cuff modules are disclosed as well.
However, one of the main challenges of previously known restraint systems, including the one disclosed in the above-incorporated “Soft Circular Restraint Apparatus and Method” patent application, is in how the cuff restraints are connected to stationary positions such as vehicle or other seats where the EDP may be secured for an extended period of time. This issue is of particular importance when the EDP is restrained aboard a vehicle. Of course custom designed seats with built-in stationary restraints may be provided, but such an approach is very expensive and significantly limited in usefulness.
Another issue is how the wrist and ankle restraints are connected to one another. While connecting ankle cuff modules to one another by a simple interconnect may serve to prevent the EDP from kicking, application of a simple wrist interconnect may pose a problem with particularly violent and/or aggressive EDPs. Similarly, while a simple wrist interconnect may prevent the EDP from using their hands independently from one another, the EDP is not prevented from flailing their arms at elbows and shoulder if the restrained wrists are at the EDP's front, where the EDP may still attack other persons even if the wrists are pulled together. Securing the EDP's wrists behind their back is a partial solution, but a nimble EDP can contort themselves to move their wrists to the front of their body. With respect to ankle restraints, while the novel circular cuff modules, disclosed in the above-incorporated patent application, include connectors to releasably connect to stationary connectors (such as may be disposed on a bed), other types of ankle modules and respective interconnects do not possess any mechanism to connect to stationary connectors. Most importantly, most previously known restraint systems cannot be releasably but securely connected to stationary areas, such as ordinary vehicle seats, and, even if securely connected to such areas, cannot be quickly released in case of an emergency.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus and method for quickly and easily applying mechanical restraints to a person being controlled through a restraining hold, or who is otherwise immobile, in a confined area such as a vehicle aisle. It would furthermore be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint apparatus that is relatively comfortable to the subject and that may be quickly and easily removed in case of an emergency. It would additionally be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint system that severely restricts the range of motion of the person's arms and legs. It would further be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint system that can be attached to commonly used vehicle or other seats. It would also be desirable to provide a lightweight mechanical restraint system that is easy to transport and use and that is inexpensive to manufacture. Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint system that may be easily be placed in an extended restraint mode without requiring additional equipment.